An Anonymous Coward writes:
Until now, electric cars could be broken down nicely -- at the high end there is Tesla S & X, and then there is everything else (possibly including Tesla 3). A few possible competitors either quit early (Fisker) or haven't made it to production yet (Lucid, Faraday Future). This split covered price, luxury and range. Now there is a serious competitor from Jaguar and Motor Trend tested the I-Pace in Europe. While they report trouble finding charging points (it's a new car after all), they generally seemed to be impressed.
As BEV platforms go, the I-Pace’s skateboard layout is conventional. There’s a motor at each end, one driving the front wheels, the other the rear, and in between is a liquid-cooled 90-kW-hr battery pack with 432 lithium-ion cells that also provides structural integrity for the chassis. The Jaguar-developed motors are synchronous permanent magnet units with concentric transmissions that align the motors with the axles. Total output is 394 hp and 512 lb-ft.
[...] Much of Germany’s autobahn is subject to speed limits, so we spend a lot of time at 75–80 mph. There’s not much wind today, but the higher speed boosts consumption to 43 kW-hr per 100 miles. On one derestricted stretch I wind the I-Pace up near its 124-mph Vmax. It gets there easily, but I burn 6 miles of range in the process (and yes, a gasoline version would also burn fuel with such a surge). Feeling guilty at the extravagance, I back off and settle down to 75–80 mph again.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 09 2018, @03:15PM (2 children)
Heck, electric cars predate the internal combustion engine. *All* early cars were electric, though the much greater range of ICE vehicles helped them swiftly dominate the market. And by the time Ford's Model T started bringing cars to the masses, electric had become nothing more than a footnote. (actually... there were a few steam-powered cars early on, not sure how they fit in though)
What has changed about electric is the details - the invention of AC motors dramatically improved efficiency while lowering maintenance, while modern electronic control systems make it possible to vary their speed (or use brushless DC motors), and much lighter, higher capacity batteries gave them the range to be "good enough" for many modern drivers acclimated to ICEs. And of course the falling prices of those batteries has started making the whole shebang economically viable in a world that has developed around the range of ICE vehicles. As someone said decades ago "There's nothing wrong with electric cars that a battery with twice the capacity for half the price wouldn't solve". We're still not there yet, but it's improved to the point that they're at least becoming viable as luxury novelties.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 09 2018, @03:36PM (1 child)
> *All* early cars were electric
Citation needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benz_Patent-Motorwagen [wikipedia.org]
> The Benz Patent-Motorwagen ("patent motorcar"), built in 1885, is sometimes regarded as the world's first 'production' automobile,[1] that is, a vehicle designed to be propelled by an internal combustion engine. The original cost of the vehicle in 1885 was 600 imperial German marks,[2] approximately 150 US dollars (equivalent to $4,086 in 2017).
>...
> Benz unveiled his invention to the public on 3 July 1886, on the Ringstrasse in Mannheim.
>
> About 25 Patent-Motorwagens were built between 1886 and 1893.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday June 09 2018, @07:59PM
First (model) electric car: 1828. They didn't start becoming practical until the invention of the lead-acid battery in 1859
"English inventor Thomas Parker, ... , built the first production electric car in London in 1884"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle [wikipedia.org]